How Reading can Inspire Drawing

Alright, so if you’re starting to notice a common theme on my blog, you might notice its inspiration. Well, that's probably because that's the thing I know most about art at this time, and because I think everybody could always use some.

But this post is a little different than my previous inspirational posts. Instead of telling you to look at your surroundings, I want you to find the nearest book, and just start reading.

When you get to a part that inspires you, stop reading, put in a bookmark, grab some paper and a pencil, or a pen if that's what you prefer, and just start drawing whatever you just read. Not only is it a good way to practice drawing characters in action, it can also help with your backgrounds, which is something I must admit I need to work on.

I'll try to edit this post at some point, with a picture from a book, but at the moment I don't really have any saved on my computer, I'll have to work on that!

I know this is a rather short post, but that's because I think I've run out of inspirational things to say.

 So one last thing, if you do draw something based on a book, and I do hope you do, as it is great practice, could you maybe take a picture and post it in the comments below?

I'd love to see your guys' art, and feel free to put in your email in the subscribe thing, if you want some more. I'm currently posting on Saturdays, usually weekly, but sometimes I miss a week, but I usually try to catch up ASAP, or sometimes I post early, because I really just want to get the post out.

See you guys next week!

More Insparation Ideas

Alright, so you remember this post? If not, I suggest you go and read it. It talks about taking inspiration from places that you might not expect. In this post, I'll be talking about more places to gain inspiration for your images, and hopefully by the time I'm done, you'll be taking in inspiration from everything you look at!

Alright, so first off, take a look around you. Are you sitting in your room? Pay close attention to the designs on your blankets, and study any toys that might be lying around, could you take some of those designs and put them into your drawings? Are you sitting at a desk? Well, are there any paintings around? Or some books with elaborately drawn covers are sitting nearby. Or maybe you are outside, or perhaps in the car. Look at your surroundings; are there any funky looking trees? Or maybe a cloud shaped like a mermaid princess!

Another good place to look for inspiration, is by watching a movie, but instead of watching the main character, the person the screen is focusing on, focus your gaze at the background stuff, and see what inspires you from there!

Take in all the little details, and pause the movie at random scenes to see what's going on.

Or if you like Legos, try designing a build, and then making it, or perhaps do it the other way around, do the build, and then make a drawing based on your build!

I sure hope these tips have helped you.

Do you have any tips to share? I'd love to hear them!

Drawing Crossovers

Crossovers are an amazing thing. Especially when they happen in-canon, such as in the episode of Transformers Robots in Disguise, when Rescue Bot Blurr makes an appearance!

But sometimes, we can come up with crossovers that, well, let's face it. They just aren't going to happen. So, it's up to us the fans to write, or draw them.

Alright, so what two fandoms have you dreamt of having the characters meet? For this post, I'll be using several examples, the first of which being a book-meets-movie art. 

So for those of you who have seen the movie How to Train Your Dragon, you know Toothless as a rather large black scaled dragon cutie, who most definitely HAS teeth. But if you've read the books, then you'll know the original Toothless was small enough to ride around on Hiccup's shoulder, was a pale sickly green color, and had no teeth. 

Those are some rather drastic differences don't you think? So can you imagine what it would be like for the movie Toothless to meet the book Toothless? Well....a while back I drew it. I was just beginning to draw Dragons then, and book Toothless had very few image references, so there might be a few alterations that I never noticed when drawing.

{I was also a little lazy with them and only drew as much as necessary to define each character XD}
I wonder what it would look like now if I re-drew it now hmm....I'll have to do that sometime soon and show you all.

Anyways, look at those major differences in character! It's like two whole different characters are meeting, which, they technically are. There are three things they share. 1; their name is Toothless, 2; they are dragons, and 3; their owner is Hiccup.

So can't you just imagine how awesome their meeting would be?


For my second example, I'll be using two very different fandoms, and a picture I'm sure is growing quite familiar on this blog.

 I'm pretty sure this is my third time using this picture now, but hey, it's been a great example for all the posts it's been in. It's one of my best pictures so far, but hopefully that will change sometime soon as I'm working on my design, but for the time being, this is also my best crossover art, so just bear with me here.

Anyways, this picture is a crossover between Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir, and Young Justice, though it might not look like it. The winged person is Robin, who in a fan-fiction I'm writing, gains a Miraculous and becomes a hero called Oiseau.

{Oiseau is the French word for bird, and is basically pronounced Wazoo}.

So ya, drawing crossovers is really fun!


I want you to draw a crossover. Is it book-meets-movie? Or the meeting of two fandoms?

You can decide, but I want you to challenge yourself to draw it, and when it's ready, post it in the comments, and let me see your awesome ideas!